Lee is a quiet and unassuming office worker who leads a life of solitude, comfort, and routine. Day in and day out, he shuts off his brain, keeps his head down, and goes about doing his job and minding his own business. That is, he does until a drunken god shows up randomly one day and whisks him off into another world, demanding that Lee serve as his pawn in a game between the gods. Now, trapped in a completely different world full of danger, magic, and creatures he's never imagined outside of fairy tales and video games, Lee has to figure out how to stay alive long enough to make it back home.
My Opinion: 463 page, $3.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
Full disclosure: I did some minor beta reading for the author. He gives a thanks in the back of the novel. Additionally, the author names several characters in the story after LitRPG authors, one is me. See if you can figure out who they all are. I’m up to 4 so far.
From the author of The Bathrobe Knight series and The Merchant of Tiqpa series. Charles Dean combines good story telling with an original RPG world full where the gods compete for fame and glory by meddling in the lives of us mortals. The latest pawn in this game is Lee. A normal boring human from our world that’s plucked out of his mediocre life and sent to a world ruled by RPG mechanics to get faith points for the god of alcohol and crafting. While completing some quests in this world, Lee stumbles upon a sinister plot that threatens the people he’s come to care about in this RPG world. Will he risk his life and try to help these new friends or will he try escape back to his boring, safe life on earth?
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This is a good story full of action and adventure. Yet it’s more than just an action romp. There are interesting themes in the novel about what it means to be divine and have faith. There are also questions about what people would do if they were given real power. Late in the story there are even subtle threads about the cost of violence on a man’s outlook on life. Don’t worry, there’s still plenty of good old fashion fighting, quest solving, XP gaining, skill progression, and humor too.
Game mechanic wise there’s a good deal of info given in the story and from reading the story I think I could roll a character in this world. Though I’d like to think I could be a ‘god of coffee and bacon’ I’d probably end up being something boring like 'the minor spirit of book reviews'.
Overall, a fun, interesting read.
Score: 7 out of 10.